Which Game are You Watching?

There are several games afoot in our Modernity. Some of them are chess, others checkers, some merely simple text-only strategy games. But they are all, in fact, games, and thus we find ourselves pieces to be moved, or we sidestep these entire matches as best we can.

The Internet is now full of anger and pure defiance toward these Modern games. But this thing, this interconnected web of billions of people and machines, has no idea how to wage any sort of quiet war. It gives away all its secrets without hesitation, daring the particular enemy within the particular game it is trying to win to read and respond.

That is certainly one way to go: to attempt to simply overwrite the narrative with a prolific stream of, more or less, thought and speech crimes in this game.

But as the future emerges suddenly, as it has upon us now, the stakes are going to rise. Significantly. The outrage at the notion of being branded a thought criminal will disappear as the reality of the consequences of this brand arise. We created Nemesis with our Hubris. Now, it begins to tighten its grip.

The only option for the machine called Nemesis that we’ve created is to divide and conquer us. There’s really no other recourse that its programming can logically take. Our own technology, each day, is programmed with billions of people expressing billions of thoughts constantly. This technology we’ve created doesn’t need sentience to accomplish this, as it is merely a golem: something we built and then brought to life with our filth and trash. Everywhere you look, media sets up a new game. Our technology promotes these games to us through our black mirrors. Our screens; phones, TVs, tablets, etc..

We play the games, the data is collected, Nemesis knows a bit more about how we are attempting to wage war against it. If ever we arrive at a winning strategy, a new game is put into play, which we seem to willingly fall right into.

The possibility of peace of mind in this madness in order to formulate better ideas and strategies, as well as using a superior form of communication—the written word on paper—might be in side-stepping the games. Turning off the screens more. Talking face to face more, in homes, rather than feeding Nemesis the data of our own strategies. Who knows? It’s something I’ve been attempting, at least. For what that might be worth to you.

It will cost dearly. It will be uncomfortable and wobbly for a time.

So thus, I’ve declared part of the strategy I’m thinking about and won’t continue further, because, frankly, I’m tired of the damn game.

The one thing to know for certain is that the defiance is, in and of itself, part of the strategy; it’s part of the game. This is no call to give up, merely a clue into the reality of the whole point to the entire, mind-numbing stream of games being played by us and on us by our own Modernity. As the stakes get higher, mere defiance will not do, because Nemesis is learning our every move as a species and, thanks to our ingenuity in designing our civilization’s end, it’s learning very fast, indeed.

Do we really expect that the revolution will be televised if our own Nemesis knows it’s coming?